


Ruining Someone (slavau): Teenage Years

by bogfable



Series: Ruining Someone (SlavAU) [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Angst, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Fights, Human AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, OCs - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenagers, everyone issss ssaaaaaaaaaad babey !, im tagging ahead for things thatll happen in other onshots, o h no, propably..., sorry Mum, there are two characters called Olya and Daniil they are ocs dont worry bot it, this is angst mostly woops ...with a side of drug abuse, tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:51:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16115012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogfable/pseuds/bogfable
Summary: A series of little short writings I've done about Lapis and Jasper in slavau when they were teenagers. So Mala is not yet born in these and they don't live in the same town as they do in 'Mala's Diary'.





	1. Ruining Someone

**Author's Note:**

> oh no :(
> 
>  
> 
> Olya (Onyx) and Daniil are in this , they are ocs but i dont have art posted for them yet

Lapis was angry. Heat radiated through her skin, prickling as cold rain rolled down her arms. 

Jasper stood besides her, her pale eyes unfocused, as they leant back against the rough stone wall of the tower-block. The cigarette in-between Lapis’ fingers hissed in the watery, cold air. She took a drag, held her breath, and exhaled through her nose. 

Four in the morning was a strange time of night. It made Lapis wonder how real everything was. At four in the morning buildings were only shapes and street-lamps wore glowing rings of rainy halos. Sounds were at once clearer and more distant, travelling underwater. 

Lapis stared at her own hand as she lifted her cigarette again, her bones and tendons were shockingly visible in the greenish glow of the broken porch light. She didn’t feel entirely inside own her body. 

“I…want to go home,” said a slurring voice. 

Lapis startled, but it was only Jasper. She looked about to keel over. 

“Good luck with that,” Lapis sighed.

Jasper glared at her, slurring, “Shut up.” 

Rolling her eyes, Lapis ignored her and took another drag.

“I’m going to go home,” Jasper said, pushing off the wall.

A swell of panic rose inside Lapis, even though she knew Jasper wouldn’t. She reached out for Jasper’s hand and laced their fingers together as she pulled her back. Jasper’s hand was warm and rough. She pulled away. 

“You aren’t going home, Jasper,” Lapis hissed. Again, she reached for her, but for her wrist this time. 

With a grunt, Jasper shoved Lapis away, forcing a gasp from her as her back hit the wall. She cried out, pressed a hand to the back of her head where she’d bumped it. Lapis’ hands shook. She watched Jasper walk away for a second before she ran after her. She caught up. Stubbed her cigarette out on Jasper’s collar bone as she turned around. 

Jasper gave a wordless shout. Again, Lapis was pushed. This time she only stumbled, taking quick steps back as she regained her balance. 

“You aren’t going home, Jasper.” Lapis took a steady step closer, threw her cigarette butt to the ground. “What? Do you think Yelena would even let you? You’re not _that_ stupid.” 

Jasper rubbed her burnt patch of skin, unknowingly worsening it. Her eyes were hazy with a confused anger that mingled with the pills she’d taken, the drinks she’d drunk. 

Still, Lapis fumed. “You were just a piece of ass to your _friends_. You weren’t really one of them. Why would Yelena be any different? Why would she want someone like _you_ who hangs out with people like _me_? Why would she want such a _worthless_ piece of _shit_?”

Some of Lapis regretted what she’d said as she was pushed up against the wall, Jasper’s hands on either side of her, pinning her wrists. Most of her didn’t. 

“SHUT UP!” Jasper screamed. “SHUT UP!” Her chest trembled with half taken breaths. 

Lapis balled her fists until her skin was taught and pale against her knuckles. Until they shook. She stared up at Jasper, watching her eyes well and tears bead on her eyelashes. Rain caught in her hair, too thick to be soaked through. Her top clung to her. 

An angry roar swelled inside Lapis, like waves against a cliff or a pregnant storm cloud. The anger filled her until she was numb. She uncurled her fists. Spat. Jasper yelled a half-formed word and released a wrist to wipe spit from her cheek. Lapis snatched her hand away as Jasper tried to pin her again. She swung her hand hard. Clawed her face. Ripped her skin. Made her bleed. 

There was a shriek. Jasper hunched over. She stumbled and fell to the side, slumping against the wall. She huddled there, holding her face. Lapis watched. She felt lighter. She bent down, face to covered face. 

“Fuck you!” Jasper cried through her hands.

Lapis pulled her dripping fringe out of her eyes, sending droplets tumbling down her face, and kicked. Kicked hard at Jasper’s hands, at her face. There was another shriek. Lapis ran.

 

* * *

 

At five in the morning the door to Olya and Daniil’s flat creaked open. Lapis lay beneath a quilt, holding her breath and listening as Jasper’s unmistakeable heavy footsteps stumbled in. 

When the door to their bedroom opened she pretended to be asleep, lying perfectly still with the quilt pulled to her chin. There was a sniff. Then Jasper sat down on the edge of the mattress —Olya had squeezed the old mattress into the room, flopped it onto the floor for both of them to share— and it sunk beneath her weight. 

Slowly, Lapis sat up as if she’d been woken, whispering, “Jasper?”

Jasper startled, whipping her head around to look over her shoulder. In the darkness Lapis couldn’t see her face in detail, but, still, she searched for the marks she’d scratched. Jasper turned away and finished taking off her boots. She stood, swayed, and pealed off her suede trousers. They were a rusty dark orange colour, but in the darkness of the bedroom they were a crumpled black shape on the uneven floorboards. 

Jasper crawled up besides Lapis on the mattress and lay down facing her. She was a shadow, all her edges undefined. 

“I’m sorry,” croaked Jasper.

Lapis didn’t say anything.

“I love you. I don’t want to go home. I want to stay with you.” Jasper sounded tired or drunk or like she was crying. Lapis couldn’t tell. 

“Do you love me?” asked Jasper. 

Lapis’ heart skipped a beat. Not in a giddy, romantic way, but in the horrible way that your heart skips when you miss a step and feel yourself start to fall. She felt sick and closed her eyes tight enough that sparks shot across her eyelids. 

“Lapis?” 

Jasper was crying. 

“Lapis _, please._ ”

Crying harder. 

“ _Lapis_!”

Harder.

She grabbed ahold of Lapis’ shoulder, shaking her. Lapis pretended she wasn’t there. She let herself fall inward, deep into her staticky mind. She listened to her heartbeat and Jasper’s sobs and shaking that quaked the mattress. 

Suddenly Jasper was gone, crying out into the living room. There was a thump. Olya’s voice became audible, shouting at first before quietening and saying, “Take some of this and calm the fuck down.”

Lapis could smell the rain outside. 

She was ruining someone. 

There was a whimper outside the bedroom door.

She rolled over and fell asleep. 

 


	2. All Too Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis copes with her suicidal thoughts and depression with terrible coping mechanisms and decides to bring Jasper with her on an all-night-long trip.
> 
> (Yelena (Danshov) is Yellow Diamond)

Everything was too much. Too loud. Too fast. Too awake. 

Lapis found herself dreading lifting even the duvet from her head. There were ways to turn all into nothing, though, and when she’d found them, she’d eagerly abused them. Drowning herself in a sleepy world with just enough pills and drinks to keep everything behind a wall without killing herself entirely. She’d come close. 

Recently, Lapis felt lonely in her catatonic states. She considered asking Olya to join her but almost immediately decided against the idea. She considered all the passing faces she vaguely knew, none were trusted, stupid or destructive enough. 

Then she decided to ask Jasper. And to make sure she was vulnerable, so she’d say yes.

 

A vulnerable point came not long after. Jasper had been on the losing team of some sports competition and she stood, in her bedroom, looking at herself in the mirror. She turned side to side, frowning. Lapis lay atop Jasper’s bed, arms behind her head. 

“I fucked up,” Jasper said, fingers pulling at the skin on her hip. She sighed, “…Fuck.”

“Yeah…” replied Lapis. She held a cigarette between her teeth as she searched her coat pocket for her matchbook. 

“Yelena’s going to be so angry when she gets back. Before, even. Someone already told her probably. On the phone.”

Lapis watched as Jasper kept on examining herself; tugging skin, pinching fat. She watched as Jasper hurried to redress herself, seemingly her body covered only by underwear was suddenly too much to handle. Lapis understood. Though her own discomfort in her body was based in her gender, not a want for perfection. Still, she’d found herself staring at her shape in the mirror many times, wishing for something different.

Jasper sat on the edge of the bed, facing Lapis. 

She said: “You’re getting hair dye on my pillows.” 

“It’ll come out,” Lapis said. Her hair was freshly dyed, blue as midnight.

“It won’t.”

Lapis blew a raspberry and lit her cigarette. 

“Yelena’s going to smell that. She’ll be pissed.”

“The smell’s gonna to be gone by the time she’s back.”

Jasper huffed. “It won’t. Not in a week.” 

Lapis rolled her eyes. Then she remembered why she’d come over.

“Why were you checking yourself out just now?” she asked, exhaled smoke at the ceiling.

Jasper shuffled onto the bed and lay down with her head by Lapis’ ribs. 

“I wasn’t,” she said. A heavy sigh escaped her. She nuzzled, to Lapis’ bitter discomfort, against Lapis’ side. Hot breath against her ribs. Against the small strip of skin between her top and her skirt. Jasper shakily continued: “I’m gross.” 

No one said anything to that. The room held the silence both tensely and comfortably, as if it’d heard words of the sort many times before. It had. It held them in a plastered and painted over patch on the wall that had once been a fist-sized dent. In the kick scuffs on the door. In the bloody tissues hidden in the bin. This bedroom housed screaming, crying breakdowns.

Lapis pressed her lips together. 

“Do you want to get fucked up?” she asked.

 

* * *

 

That night they ran wild. They snorted powder on the side of the marbled bathroom sink. They jumped on the bed, tearing the blankets from the mattress. They got tired and sunk to the floor, coming down rough. 

They started again. This time taking their hazy mania outside to run in the frost-bitten garden with crackling grass and dead rose heads hanging. In their hands were spirits from a forbidden kitchen cabinet. They drank with their chins to the sky. Fucked in the gazebo that dripped wisteria in summer. Threw up in the bushes. Cried in each other’s arms. Collapsed in the grass. Started again. Again and again and again. Until it was morning, pale violet and dreamy.

 

* * *

 

 

Lapis woke some hours later, in a bed and clothes that were not her own. She panicked, found her coat beside her, swallowed pills, and got up. She stepped onto a floor that felt hollow and felt her heartbeat slow and steady inside her chest. It rang in her ears. The window was open wide, curtains billowing. Mist or smoke drifted below the ornate ceiling. The morning sighed.

Jasper lay on the rug at the foot of the bed, legs bent to the side and her arms spread out wide as if she were to be crucified on the pretty golden cross above her bed. 

Something had happened last night that Lapis could barely remember. There were only spirits and nighttime and bodies. Bodies as full and naked as the moon. Jasper wore only the top she’d worn yesterday, her legs strewn long on the rug that cost more than anything Lapis had ever owned. Would ever own.


	3. She Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lapis searches through Jasper's things after she stays the night.
> 
> Originally written on September 25th, 2018

On the bookshelf you find a blush-pink photo album. You take it beneath your arm, sit down on Jasper’s bed and open it. Jasper, tucked beneath the silky duvet, peers at you. 

“What’s that?” She asks.

You hold up the album and she’s up like a bottle rocket, trying to grab it from you. You jump out of reach and run across the sunlit room. Frantically Jasper searches for her clothes as you flip through the pages. The album is the kind a mother makes for a firstborn child: fully decorated, brimming with dated photographs and annotated in cursive. You come to a photograph and snort as Jasper takes the book from you. 

“Don’t,” she says.

You hold back a laugh and gesture to the book. “You’re like Pippi Longstocking.”

Jasper opens the album to the page you’d left it. The photograph is of her as a young child, hair in braids and legs in striped socks, front teeth missing. She looks a little wild, a child who played rough and scuffed up her palms and knees. 

“I’m not ginger,” grumbles Jasper.

You roll you eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Jasper pulls away when you try to take the album back. 

“No,” she says to your frustratedly raised eyebrows.

“Why?”

“You’re just fucking laughing at it. My mother made this.” 

“So?” you question. 

Jasper presses her lips together, her nose blushed pink. “She…She is—” 

And then her voice cracks and she curls up on her bed with the album cradled in her arms. And you watch from where you stand, figuring it out. 

_Dead. She is dead_. 


	4. Lapis' Diary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: I do not condone underage drinking, drug-use, sex, or slut-shaming.. Also this is a horrible angst au..things n people are horrible. Lapis is a horrid, judgemental teenager in this and she grows as a person later.  
> Also TW for self-harm and suicidal thoughts. These things are not to be glorified and if you are struggling with these things please get help. Take care <3

30th of May 1974

 

A satellite is going to be launched today. 

I’d love to see space. And float in it’s calm emptiness. The moon and the stars are very beautiful. Here (on Earth) everything is too much to handle.

 

Tonight there is a party at Daniil and Olya’s. I guess I’ll hang around but if Olya starts to get too obnoxious I’ll leave and find somewhere else to sleep. She’s fucking ridiculous especially when she’s drunk. Always grabbing at everyone and sleeping with whoever —slut.

Remember Jasper from school? I saw her when I was wandering around near the rich kid neighbourhoods with the ornate beautiful church. She was fucking around with some too-handsy boy so I walked over to frighten him off. None of the boys like me —Good. 

Jasper seems kind of thick but I feel like I could talk to her and maybe she’s not actually. She has this perfect act —passing exams and winning sports shit— but it’s obvious she’s just dying to be liked. 

She told me to go away and I asked if she wanted to come to the party. She was blushing like an idiot so I wrote the address down on some paper from my bag and gave it to her. We talked a little. I told her not to expect much. She said she’d go and put the paper in the pocket of her trousers and walked off. Her hair is hip-length. She doesn’t understand sarcasm.. 

 

Later 

Olya and Daniil, your music taste sucks but your drinks are good. (Not  that good, good enough). People haven’t been here long but I decided to hide away in the bathroom and i’m filling it up with smoke. Hope she doesn’t mind. For now she’s too drunk to. She’s dancing around in a miniskirt and her bra. I don’t have anything interesting on. Dark makeup on my eyes and lips. A long skirt. A long-sleeved top. Both second-hand. It’s warm and it’ll get too warm as more people arrive but I feel dysphoric and modest and I don’t want to talk about my scars to anyone. 

Olya is shouting my name over and over. “Your friend is here!” Must be Jasper. I shouldn’t leave her alone with Olya too long or she’ll probably just leave. Well, that’s what I would do.

 

* * *

 

31st of May 1974

 

I just woke up and I don’t feel like moving around. Fucking hell. 

I realise now that I hardly ate at all yesterday. When I smoke I don’t get hungry. 

Sometimes I wish I had breasts and sometimes I don’t care. Sometimes I wish I never started cutting but I keep doing it. 

I want to go back to sleep but it’s almost noon and I feel too awake even though my limbs are heavy. I don’t know why I drink at parties. I always feel fucking horrible afterwards. 

Me and Jasper almost did something. Sex? Kissing? I’m not sure. We were drunk and high and she got freaked out and sick because she had never drunk alcohol before apart from little glasses of expensive champagne at Yelena Danshov’s dinner parties. And she apparently has a curfew for 11pm so we went by bus to where she lives: Yelena Danshov’s mansion. It’s gross and huge and wasteful. Like exclusive golf courses and people who have like 3 houses or more. 

We almost didn’t make it to her house because Jasper fell over drunk and skinned her knees through her trousers so we lay on a fancy lawn until she realised it was 11pm and ran off home. I stayed for like an hour and stared at the stars. I went home by myself in the dark and I’m lucky I didn’t get stabbed or mugged or killed. Sometimes I wish I would. 

 

Jasper has cuts on her thighs. I think. It was dark in my bedroom when we almost did whatever we almost did.

 

I kind of hate Jasper. She’s too loud and always asks why? and doesn’t understand a single joke I make. She feels desperate for any kind of love. I guess thats why she lets boys be gross to her. Maybe she doesn’t understand. 

I don’t know why but I asked for her phone number. She said she can’t have me call because Yelena would be so pissed but she we wrote our addresses down for each other. 

What am I doing? what am i doing what am i doing ??

 

I’m going to go steal some cigarettes. I have hardly any money. I need to piss. I’m not really hungry but i’ll have coffee and maybe something else. 

 

later: 

I need to work on a new painting. I went on the train into the town centre today and stole the cigarettes and nail polish and white oil paint. All I’ve been doing is writing pointless shit and scribbling in my sketchbook. Nothing coming out. I’m going to heat up a can of soup while Olya’s asleep. I really don’t want to talk.

 

* * *

 

4th of June 1974

 

Am I a creep? I walked today and ended up lurking nearby my old high school, from before I was kicked out. Jasper was outside on the sports grounds. I think that’s the only time I’ve seen her not sad or angry. Just determined, and smiling. She’s a good runner. And, although she is two years younger than I am, she’s almost six feet tall and blends well with the boys, apart from her long hair. I’m around 5’5. 

I didn’t hang around long. My chest gets tight near that place.

I’m sitting in a park, on the top of the climbing frame. There’s not really any kids around. That’s good. Their parents always give me dirty looks. Kids make me nervous… 

My sketchbook is almost full. Today I’ve had a lot of ideas — ones that don’t suck. Ideas for paintings and comics and sculptures. I wish I had money and space for sculpture stuff. And I wish I had a better/less broken camera and more film. There’s none left. I used the last of it to photograph this weird park and the rotting hand-painted wooden creatures. They make me feel sad. Like I’m rotting too. And like there’s something missing inside me. Their painted smiles are chipping off and it makes me want to cry.

I’ll finish my stolen cigarette and maybe go home. I hope Olya’s not there.

 

* * *

 

7th of June 1974

 

It’s not normal to hate someone so violently but want them to be with you so much. I’m so angry at so many people in my life and from my past. Mostly my past. I hate people. I don’t trust a single soul.

I don’t trust Jasper but I fucked her. It was her first time…

It happened on my bed, my mattress on the floor. It was frenzied. We were drunk-ish and messy.

I like her but then she makes me so angry that I want to slam her face into the edge of the kitchen counter. Not because she did anything in particular. I don’t know.

Does that make me a horrible person?

I wouldn’t do it. But I think it and it makes me want to run away… Guilt absolutely consumes me. I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow. 

 


	5. Cake Sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: self-harm, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse
> 
> this is an old vent writing from may 2018.. in which Lapis and Jasper cope dangerously and unhealthily. im sorry everyone..and sorry mum

Both of you cried. Both of you cut yourselves. You cut her thigh for her. Both of you ate the awful cake you’d drunkenly made together.

You’re both still drunk. The fun is wearing away though. You’re mellowing out, calming down, and sinking against the wall. But Jasper is crying. Crying because she ate too much. 

She asks you to help her to the bathroom so she can puke. You tell her to stop freaking out. She pushes up off the ground, stumbling away. You get up and follow with your drink. To make sure that she doesn’t crack open her head on the tiles. She’s sobbing when you get there, fingers down her throat and crouched over the toilet. Retching. Heaving. Shaking. Trembling as she’s sick. She cries and cries and spits. You turn away. You cover your nose and slip down against her back, head sloshing, like your cup. She throws up and up and up until it’s just bile. She slumps against the wall. Dribble hangs off her chin, dripping down her front. A patch of blood vessels between her cheekbone and eye have burst, spreading red. Her hands spasm and she keeps crying. You get up. You leave and you’re not sure why. 

 

You’re woken by the sun an uncertain number of hours later. Your head feels like fevers you had as a child. Throbbing. Swaying. You struggle to stand. You don’t know if Jasper left last night. A pile ofpillows and a dirty plate sit on the floor still, the remnants of what regrettably happened. An ashtray, nail polish and liquor bottles circle the pile as if it were an offering. 

 

You find Jasper, still in the bathroom. A sorry sight, lying on the bathroom floor with vomit in her hair. She’s pissed herself and her makeup is dried down her face in streaks. You stand over her and wonder if she’s breathing, glaring hard at her chest until you see it move. Thank God it is.

You walk away. Your vision swims. You go back to sleep.


	6. Far Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis and Jasper leave behind the town in which they grew up. They leave behind their families, get on a train at midnight and leave forever.  
> And this fic probably my favourite for this whole series..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly written whilst listening to The Sixth Station from Spirited Away
> 
> This feels close to my heart...

We’re leaving. Me and Jasper. We decided last night to leave forever and go to the sea. I’m sick of Olya’s apartment; Yelena fought with Jasper and hit her because of me. She kicked her out. 

Now we have nowhere. I want to find somewhere. I need to run away. I have to go.

Maybe Jasper might get scared, she’s afraid of change after all. It’s okay if she chickens out and turns around, goes back home with her tail between her legs, begging for Yelena’s forgiveness. I’ll keep going. Although company would be nice.

 

☾

 

My bags are packed. Jasper should be here soon. 

I wait for her in front of the train station, mist rising around me in the lamplight. The moon is far above, blue-white. The lights of the town below are stars. All blinking softly.

On the other side of the road Jasper emerges from the alleyway shortcut, weighed down by the bag on her back, trudging. Her hair is wild in the lamplight. She took the money we need for food and everything else. Took it from Yelena. 

“Hey,” Jasper breathes as she reaches me.

“Hey.” My voice is quieter than I meant it to be, tired.

I watch Jasper’s heavy breath, visible in the night air, as it fades above our heads. She peers at her watch.

“Ten-to-twelve,” she says. 

I nod and take our tickets from my pocket. We’re taking the midnight train, heading northward. It runs along the coast, through sleepy towns and empty stations. In my bag I carry a map marked with our destination, just as asleep as all the rest, right on the sea. I don’t carry much else.

When I was small I was captivated when people talked about the midnight train that passed through town. I’d stay up past my bedtime and listen for it’s whistle. To me it seemed unreal, romantic. A dream. 

I do feel like I’m dreaming.

Jasper and I wait on the platform, bags at our feet. Far away someone is playing a piano. Perhaps in the flats nearby, window open. I feel all the energy around us, all the people in their homes, sleeping and hugging and drinking and working too much. In those quiet moments I’m part of something more. It’s a shame that it’s such a sad something. 

“You okay?” asks Jasper.

“Yeah,” I sigh.

Behind her a man steps onto the platform, suitcase in hand. He eyes us and shakes his head as he walks farther away. I pretend he isn’t there, that it’s only Jasper and I.

Then, gradually, the rumble of the train inches into earshot. It’s slow and purposeful. Sleepy and old as it slows in the station, echoing. It sighs as it comes to a stop. The doors are opened, our tickets checked and punched as we step aboard. The carriages are nearly empty, the few passengers all nodding off in the dim light. It’s quiet, lonely.

Behind me, Jasper takes a deep, shuddering breath.

We sit beside each other on worn-old seats, bags tucked beneath us, knees touching. I exhale slowly, steadily.

As the train pulls out the station I watch the town as it slips away. I watch the areas I’ve become so familiar with disappear. They fade into the dark. And soon, the town is fading too. 

Beneath us, around us, the carriage sways and trembles, and falls into a rhythm. 

Jasper holds her hand out to me, palm-up on her thigh. Her eyes are shiny, watery on her lash-line, her jaw tight. I lace my fingers in her’s, rubbing circles on her rough skin as our old home finally disappears. All that’s left is darkness, nothing at all until we reach the next town. For now, we are the only people on Earth… In the whole universe. 

In that thought I find peace. And I close my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou for reading! Feedback/kudos/comments are all greatly appreciated<3 <3


	7. Bloody Nose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a vent fic. it was going to be longer but i cried and now im going to bed.
> 
> its throwback also to when Lapis wrote in her diary (in a previous chapter) that she had intrusive thoughts to smash jasper's face on the counter.

There’s a horrible noise when faces collide with countertops. It’s a crack and a thud and a whine of an injured animal. We are just animals after all. 

There’s a growl and a whine and a cry, and Jasper is on the ground, foetal positioned. I cradle my cheek. The scratched on my face, where she clawed me, stings. Makes my eyes cry. My hand comes away a little bloody. My heart pounds quick with adrenaline. 

I stand over her body. The thought of her lying dead flashes through my head. Then it does again. Over and over until I’m backing away, really crying. As I reach the doorway Jasper begins to sit up. Her shoulders shake. She’s crying. 

I can’t leave her now.

She turns to me and her nose is so, so bloody. It drips into her lap, onto the floorboards. 

“Oh, Jasper,” I find myself saying. 

I crouch down beside her. She slaps me weakly through her tears, hitting my jaw. It doesn’t hurt. I take her face in my hands and stare at what I’ve done to her. She’s really bleeding. She mumbles something to me that I don’t understand. All her too-big-for-her-mouth teeth are still there. Only her nose is fucked up. Maybe. She’ll be bruised tomorrow. We both will. 


	8. Floating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a blazing summer day Lapis and Jasper sneak away to a cove..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written over a year ago. I forgot about posting it.

Lapis taught you to float. To lie back in the ocean and stare up at the sky, arms and legs stretched wide like a sea-star. To breathe slowly, to move as little as possible. She could have floated forever if that was possible. 

“I feel like I’m part of the water, reflecting the sky,” She told you once, as your feet sank to the bottom and you stood upright to avoid a mouthful of salt water. Sand swirled around your ankles, pieces of seaweed tickling your shins. Lapis glanced at you, keeping her head facing the sky. 

“You suck at that,” She said. “You always just sink.” 

“I thought you said I just need practice,” You replied, frowning down at her sun-kissed face.

“Pff, yeah. That too.” 

With that she closed her eyes. For a moment you stood, adjusting the braided crown she’d done for you earlier. You decided to take the hint and leave her alone whilst she dreamt about becoming part of the water and the hazy blue sky. 

You made your way to the shallows, wading across the empty cove until you came to sit on the wet sand. The waves lapped against your thighs. You wrote your name in the sand with your finger and watched as the next wave washed it away and replaced it with a group of tiny clam shells, striped pink, one with a hole in it. The horizon rippled, the sea distinguished from the sky by only a couple of wispy clouds. Lapis floated below the horizon. She lay far out from the shore, appearing only as a few undefined shapes, but you weren’t worried, she’d won medals for swimming.

 

 

You had been sitting with your eyes closed and head tilted up towards the sun for a long time when you heard the splashing of Lapis’ approaching footsteps. They stopped a short distance away. You opened one eye and scrunched your nose as you squinted, everything shone too bright and tinted blue. Lapis stood over you, silhouetted by the vast sky, a cloud having formed just behind her shoulder. She squeezed out the sarong tied around her waist, making a point to flick water dropletsat you. She laughed.

“Knock it off,” you said, shielding your face.

Lapis blew a raspberry and sat down by your side. Her fingertips ran across the sand until she reached a peachy shell, bigger than the ones that the waves had carried in. She picked it up, holding it over her eye like an eyepatch, and set it down on your thigh. 

“We should live here,” Lapis said quietly.

“What? On the _beach_?” 

“No,” for a moment she paused, thinking. “Here in general. Near the sea. Like that town yesterday. Being near the sea makes me feel like I’m not totally fucked up.” 

You sat and watched for a moment as Lapis placed two more shells in a row on your thigh, arranged in order of size. 

“You aren’t fucked up.” 

Lapis gave a short, bitter laugh, shaking her head. She placed a tiny fourth shell in the row she’d made on your leg and lay back onto the dry sand. Behind you she sighed again, deep and long, tired. 

“We’re both pretty fucked up,” She sighed.

Your heart clenched and you pulled your knees against your chest, the shells slipping onto the sand. The sun’s reflection glittered, dancing on the waves rippling in the distance. Since you could remember you had been told that you were a let down - a fuck-up. Hearing it from Lapis felt she’d stabbed you in the gut and twisted. 

You hugged your arms tight around your knees, eyes locked on the water just beyond your feet. It sloshed farther up the sand, swirling between your ankles. Your eyes stung, tears gathering on your eyelashes. You locked your jaw and furrowed your brow. You didn’t want to cry. You didn’t want to be this way. But Lapis was right and you knew it.

 


End file.
